Nearly seven decades later, Ernie Heaton still remembers Rabbi Alexander Goode and three other Army chaplains aboard the doomed USAT Dorchester, a former cruise ship converted to a troop transport headed for Europe during World War II.

“The loving care they distributed to everybody … Anybody who wanted to come to them, they would accept them with open arms,” Heaton said.

When the ship with 902 men aboard was torpedoed by a German submarine in the frigid waters off Greenland early on Feb. 3, 1943, the four chaplains helped ease panic and organize an evacuation. “They had a lot of men around them, crying, screaming … the chaplains were trying to soothe those guys,” Heaton said. “The last time I saw them, they had given up their life jackets.”

Goode, Methodist minister George Fox, Reformed Church minister Clark Poling and John Washington, a Catholic priest, went down with the ship. Witnesses later reported seeing the four Army lieutenants arm-in-arm praying and singing together on the deck as the ship sank.

Until this week, Goode was the only one whose name was not inscribed on a monument at Arlington National Cemetery — because there was no monument to Jewish chaplains who had died on active duty.

It was the story of the four chaplains that inspired an effort to correct the oversight, culminating Monday in the dedication of the Jewish Chaplains Memorial in Arlington, Va.

“This tale of faith now has an ending we can all be proud of,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who helped push legislation authorizing the memorial through Congress in May — Jewish American Heritage Month – after a lobbying and fundraising campaign by veterans and Jewish groups.

The memorial, a bronze plaque on a granite headstone, sits on Chaplains Hill in Arlington National Cemetery, next to three others: one honoring chaplains who died in World War I, a second honoring Catholic chaplains from World War II through the Vietnam War and a third honoring Protestant chaplains killed in the two world wars.

Goode’s name is the first of 14 Jewish chaplains listed on the plaque of the new memorial, a testimony to the fact that the four chaplains’ story has become the archetype for the military’s unique system — a single chaplain corps with representatives from many faiths who provide specific services to fellow believers and are charged with serving any service member in need.

In an emotional speech, Maj. Gen. Cecil Richardson, the U.S. Air Force chief of chaplains and a minister in the Assemblies of God, noted that the 14 Jewish chaplains whose names are inscribed on the memorial — like their comrades of other faiths — suffered as the troops suffered in the nation’s wars.

“They walked where warriors walked,” he said.

“Chaplains throughout the military service are proud of the 14 Jewish chaplains memorialized on this plaque today. … They brought [the troops] faith, and they brought them a message of hope.”

The chaplain corps also represents the fact that God is always standing beside U.S. service members, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said at the ceremony.

“Faith is the most powerful weapon in our military’s arsenal,” he said. “Without it, our service members would stand alone in front of the enemy.

“The men this memorial represents have been standing in line waiting for admittance,” he said, noting that their time had finally come.

Heaton, 88, sat front row, center, in Arlington’s Memorial Amphitheater as Goode and the other 13 Jewish chaplains were honored with speeches and prayers in Hebrew and English during the two-hour dedication ceremony.

Of the 230 survivors of the Dorchester, he’s one of two still alive. Now, he spends much of his time working to create a memorial to the four chaplains near his hometown of Vero Beach, Fla., that would be added to several others across the nation, including a stained-glass window in the Pentagon.

“The money’s coming in, but it’s slow,” he said.

After Monday’s ceremony, he made his pitch to Wasserman Schultz, who promised “anything I can do to help.”